The Reality of MakeBelieve
by Hokama Sekushiru
Summary: Sometimes, you have to choose between upholding reality and upholding hope; don't you, Isa? Short platonic AkuSai fluff.


The Castle is quiet, somber, and grey, as is usual around here.

It's only a little past what would be midnight, if there were such a thing as passing time in the World That Never Was. Here, though, the outside sky is a constant; the rain falls perpetually into the streets of Dark City below, and above, the golden Sacred Moon of Kingdom Hearts floats leisurely in the black and starless void surrounding the castle, easily beheld from my current perch on one of the outside balconies.

I lean on the grey castle balcony, staring up at Kingdom Hearts as it floats above me.

_So close, yet… so very, very far out of my reach—_

"Saïx?"

I turn around at the sound of the voice. Axel stands at the edge of the balcony, watching me with intent turquoise eyes.

"What do you want, Number VIII?" I question him crisply. "You should be sleeping. There are missions tomorrow."

Axel rolls his eyes at me dramatically. "Well, hi to you too, party pooper."

I cross my arms at him. "What are you doing out here?"

He shrugs. "It's my castle too, thanks. I can go wherever I want."

"Actually, you can't," I remind him, giving him a cold smirk. "You have to answer to authority now, unless what you desire is to spend the rest of your empty existence with a zipper where your mouth should be."

"Ouch," Axel says flatly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Forgive me for the lack of being intimidated."

"I can forgive you for not being intimidated about as much as you have the ability to _be_ intimidated."

He crosses his eyes in a familiar gesture of annoyance, pointedly ignoring my reminder of what we no longer have.

"The girls are in bed now," he says conversationally, after a short silence.

I shrug. "And that concerns me in what way?"

"Just thought I'd make sure you know they're safe. Don't get so touchy."

"Axel, you are fully aware that I have neither the ability nor the time to care whether or not our little _stowaways_ are safe." My face is a complete mask of blankness. "In fact, if I were properly doing my duty to this Organization, they would have been brought to the Superior long ago. The only reason they are even still alive is because I have decided to humor your irrational fancies just this once."

He literally smacks his face with his palm at that, leaving a faint red print where his hand just was. His eyes regard me with the phantom echo of disgust.

"Saïx, have you ever once just considered dropping all of… this?"

I arch one brow at him pointedly. "All of _what_, Axel?"

"All of… this." He waves his hands vaguely in my direction.

"Axel, you just gestured to all of me." I cross my arms. "To what aspect of me, _exactly_, are you referring?"

"Holy freakin' Kingdom Hearts," I hear him mutter to himself.

"I would appreciate it if you used the name of the Sacred Moon with more res—"

He cuts me off in an instant. "_That_. This whole…_obsession_, with Kingdom Hearts, and work, and always reminding me how cold and uncaring you are. I get it, Sai. I got it memorized." His eyes are burning with the fire that lives perpetually within his veins, filling the empty space within him with a blaze where his heart should be.

I shrug in the face of his hollow anger. "Excellent. Then this issue should be resolved."

This seems to be the wrong answer; the inferno in his eyes sparks to a new height. He reaches out and grabs me by both of my shoulders, shaking me violently.

"_Why don't you just drop it and feel something for once?! Why?! Why won't you even try?!_"

Then, in the space of only an instant, the rage has completely fizzled out, and he sags against my shoulder, silent once again.

I am in utter shock, unable to do anything at all except to raise my arms to support him as he leans on me. We stand in silence for what seems like a very long time, me staring up at Kingdom Hearts in the inky sky, him leaning against my shoulder like a crippled invalid.

Finally, I have to give him an answer; the only one that I know.

"Because I can't," I say honestly.

He turns his head to look up at me, and I am surprised to see the depth of pain in his turquoise irises. It looks so convincingly genuine that for a moment, I almost believe that it is real.

"You can't, or you don't want to?" he whispers.

"Axel. You know just as well as I that neither one of us has the heart to feel anything at all. Telling me to 'drop it and feel something' does about as much good as telling the sky to turn green. It is a physical impossibility." I try to make my tone gentle, but it just comes out sounding as flat and cold as always.

He straightens up, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. He watches me with those pain-filled eyes, and there is an odd, uncomfortable squirming in my gut, like he is staring right through the outside of me, into my soul.

"Okay," he finally says, and his voice is dull and almost as flat as mine, all of his usual vibrant enthusiasm suddenly gone. It's a shocking transition, and I realize suddenly just how much like his old self he always seems.

"I guess I can accept that," he whispers. "G'night, Saïx."

He turns to go, his boots dragging on the balcony's floor as he walks away from me, his head bowed low over the zipper of his coat. I watch him walking away, my own hands hanging limply at my sides.

His words ring in my mind once again.

_Have you ever once considered just dropping all of this…?_

"Lea?" My voice is quiet as I call the name.

He stops right in the middle of a step, his foot hovering over the floor like he's a movie that someone has hit the pause button on. Slowly, he turns around, and I see an insane hope flickering in those turquoise irises.

"Y-yeah?" His voice is equally quiet, almost reverent.

I sigh. If I'm doing this, I might as well commit to it all the way. I take a deep breath, let it out, and then smile at him.

"Do you want to go get some ice cream?"

Twenty minutes later, we're sitting on the clock tower in Twilight Town, staring up at the glittering spray of stars that decorate the jewel-like night sky of this world. How we even managed to get the ice cream still escapes me, and I think I would prefer it to stay that way, rather than having to exact punishment on Axel for stealing other-world property.

Besides, I'm not even sure I could punish him for giving me sea-salt ice cream.

His grin seems almost irrepressible as he chatters away about Roxas and Xion and missions, and mostly the two girls that we picked up as stowaways yesterday on reconnaissance in Hollow Bastion. I shake my head as I lick a melting drop from my ice cream bar. I don't even know why I caved in to letting him protect them, or why I haven't gone to the Superior yet. I rationalize it to myself with the fact that there is something remarkably familiar about them, which is actually true, particularly the one with white hair and the gaze that seems to pierce quietly through every defense you can mentally erect.

Mostly, though, I think I was just humoring Axel. But I will never, never admit that to myself.

I have to force my own smiles, at first, to keep him in good spirits. As the night wears on toward morning, though, I find the expressions coming more naturally to me, like remembering an old skill that you haven't practiced in a while. Once or twice, I even laugh at his jokes without any prompting, and it's almost… rewarding to see his entire face light up like the sun. Our ice creams disappear long before morning, but somehow, we stay glued to our seats on the clock tower, mostly Axel doing the talking and me mostly listening to him talk.

Finally, the first grey dimness of morning begins to breach the horizon. I turn my face toward the lightening sky, my eyebrows raised.

"We stayed up all night, didn't we?"

He grins. "Yep, we sure did. I had fun, didn't you?"

I turn back to him, to his bright and easy and familiar grin, and the smile comes without bidding.

"Yes. I did."

His face turns thoughtful as he looks over at the horizon, the light slowly beginning to creep over the hollow, sharp angles of his features, casting severe shadows.

"We should do this again sometime," he says, after a pause.

I shake my head. "No. This is strictly a one-time event. I am not going to pretend I can feel, Axel. It is exhausting; I don't know how you do it all the time."

"_I'm_ not pretending," he says with a wink.

I roll my eyes at him. "Of course. You _would_ be the only Nobody with the supernatural ability to feel emotions with _no heart_."

He looks at me seriously. "Come on, Sai. You felt it too, I know you did. When you laughed at my jokes, and I didn't have to wait for you to understand that they were funny. I know there was something. I could _see_ it."

I think back, remembering my reactions. True, maybe there _was_ a small spark of something…

But I shake my head. "No, Axel. That was just good reflexes." My pride will not let me admit it to him.

His face falls slightly, and this time there really is a sensation that clenches my gut. I say nothing, however, and he composes himself quickly.

"Oh, um… yeah, I guess it could be that too." He stands up swiftly, sticking the still-damp ice cream stick in between his teeth and chewing on it absently. I stand as well, looking down at the stick from my ice cream. Only then do I notice the word 'WINNER' printed on it in all caps.

"Winner… of what?" I mumble.

He comes over to me, looking down at the stick, and his face splits in a grin.

"You won a free ice cream! Nice, man!"

I raise one eyebrow at him. "And what do I want with a free ice cream?" I hold the stick out toward him. "Take it. I have no use for it."

He pushes it back at me, closing my fingers around the stick. My eyes widen in surprise, and he stares intently at me with that armor-piercing turquoise gaze.

"I want you to have it, Isa." His voice is quiet. "Maybe we won't ever do this again, but… I'll remember it forever." He gives a soft little laugh. "I wanna make sure you'll remember, too. Got it memorized?"

I am quiet for a long time. Finally, I pull the stick back and put it in the pocket of my coat, feeling it settle there against the black leather.

"Yeah," I reply. Then, after another pause, "…Thanks, Lea."

There is a long moment of silence, and the light continues creeping over the horizon.

Suddenly, he throws his arms around me and hugs me. I am completely caught off my guard, but eventually I react the only way I can; I hug him back awkwardly, patting his shoulder a little.

"This is slightly odd," I comment wryly. "Don't you think?"

He lets me go and grins at me, all of the enthusiasm back in his expression. "Yep. But weirdness is my business, isn't it?"

I arch an eyebrow at him. "No, missions are your business. Speaking of which, you have one scheduled in three hours. Two giant Heartless." I grin evilly at him. "But I'm sure the mighty Axel can handle it on short notice."

He gives me a long-suffering look. "Really, Sai? Really?"

I snicker. "No. You have recon. I was joking."

He looks surprised for a second, and then bursts into laughter, his sides shaking. "Good one!"

I roll my eyes at him, outwardly affecting uncaring boredom, but inside, a slight spark of warmth ignites at the sound of that laughter.

He finally stops laughing enough to summon a Dark Corridor back to the castle; grinning, he gestures at it with one arm.

"Let's go home," he says.

I nod once at him before stepping through the Corridor.


End file.
